The
World Health Organization and The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery
convened the India Surgical Forum in New Delhi recently. The WHO-Lancet
Commission on Global Surgery India Surgical Forum aims to elevate the
issues of surgical and anaesthesia access in India and provide a
platform to bring together a diverse range of change-agents in the
Indian health system who can effect change.
The
meeting brought together a broad range of individuals across sectors -
public sector, private sector, clinicians, academicians, industry,
private hospitals, civil society— to discuss next steps to improve
surgical access in India.
“After
the World Health Assembly resolution last year, countries are
recognising the need for strong health systems, of which surgery is an
integral component. India, a nation of more than 1/7th of the world’s
population, claims the dubious honor of the highest number of
individuals without access to safe, affordable and timely surgical and
anesthesia care. This issue couldn’t be more pressing,” says Dr Nobhojit
Roy, Commissioner and Chair, Health Delivery & Management Working
Group, The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery"
“The global community has come a long way in the past decade in recognising that global health efforts must focus on building stronger health systems, rather than multiple vertical interventions designed around one disease or disease category. One third of human ailments require a surgical expertise or evaluation. We cannot build adequate health systems without a provision for surgical care,” added Dr Roy.
The
Lancet Commission and a team from Harvard Medical School worked with
ARSI to develop a limited number of achievable, India-specific solutions
to alleviating the surgical and anesthesia crisis. This process, which
took place largely over the fall of 2015, culminated in a 10-point
consensus statement between The Lancet Commission and ARSI titled the
Karad Consensus Statement on Surgical Systems Strengthening. The Karad
Consensus Statement will be a core point of focus at the India National
Surgical Forum.
The
World Health Organization has been a key partner in the process and is
potentially looking to use the model for surgical system strengthening
in India as an example for other nations. “Thus far, there has been
broad interest across sectors to advance this critical, long overdue
issue,” said Dr Walt Johnson, who heads the Global Initiative for
Emergency and Essential Surgical Care at the WHO.
“Surgery
is a neglected but important component of primary healthcare and in
rural communities especially there is a need to ensure that low cost,
safe and timely care is available for those that need it,” said Dr Robyn
Norton, Principal Director of The George Institute for Global Health,
adding that the issue of access to surgical care at the primary health
level was of critical importance to strengthening health care delivery.
According
to Dr Roy, there are some very simple fixes that cost little to no
money, highlighted in the Karad Consensus Statement, that can really
optimise the system while we implement longer-term solutions. “We need
to act on these things now,” he said.source: in.finance
No comments:
Post a Comment